Thanks for Your Lack of Service

                Over the years I have had countless people ask me about my time in the United States Marine Corps.  Usually I am happy to talk about and share my experiences.  This is mostly due to the fact that despite serving during a time of war I never saw combat.  Hell, I never even deployed to the countries where combat was taking place.  As I talk about my experiences I can see their eyes begin to glaze over because I am not talking about combat and how many people I killed.  Suddenly, at some point, they will say the one phrase that I know is a set up and that I know I will have to hear that one phrase that I truly dread hearing.

                “I could never be in the military,” they will say.

                “Why not,” I take the bait willingly knowing exactly what the answer is.

                “I would not be able to stand getting yelled and screamed at all the time,” is the response.

                When I would have this exchange with people I would merely laugh and assure them that things are not really that bad.  That was while I was in the service and for about six months after I got out.  Now, however, I usually just lose all emotion in my face and body language and stare at them silently for about fifteen to twenty seconds.  I study the person that I am talking to and try to find out if they are joking or really and truthfully as stupid as I believe that they are.

                Other than being called a baby killer while I was home on leave once, this has to be one of the most offensive saying that I have ever heard said to a member of the United States Armed Forces.  I do not know if the people who say this are trying to give us a complement for being able to take what they perceive to be an unending supply of vitriolic verbal abuse or they are so completely clueless that this is what they think actually goes on. 

Yes, in boot camp the instructors in charge of recruit’s training scream and yell a lot.  That is not because they are trying to be unrelenting dickheads.  There is actually a purpose behind it, and a damned good one at that.  It is meant to stress you out.  When you are in combat, when you are working on your thirty-sixth straight hour on the flight line, or when your naval task force goes to general quarters you will be stressed.  Stress is a part of the training.  Doing this help you learn to overcome the stress and deal with it in a more productive way than curling up into the fetal position and pissing your pants.  More than once I went a full week managing about forty-five minutes of sleep a night and getting stressed the hell out the other twenty-three hours and fifteen minutes of the day.  And that was just training deployments after I had graduated boot camp and my job school.

Truth be told, after boot camp the only time there was yelling was during the noise of live fire, meaning when we were shooting weapons, training, when I screwed up and deserved an ass chewing, or the person I was talking to was out of the range of hearing for standard speech.  Much of the time we actually sat around and chatted in normal vocal registers. 

The last time a person said that phrase to me I called them a coward.  They were using the most bullshit reason to justify not serving their country.  I understand if a person has certain physical, mental, spiritual, or philosophical “limitations” that prevent them from joining the armed forces.  But, to not join because you do not want someone to yell at you is ridiculous.  Most of us have been yelled at by our parents, teachers, coaches, and anyone else who was in charge of us and our safety at one point or another.  Of course they took offense, but they matched none of the prior mentioned criteria for my being able to tolerate their stupidity and cowardice, and I told them that.  I then followed it up with, “If you cannot take getting yelled at then I really feel bad for you.  Your handling of stress must involve a bottle of alcohol, Xanax, and rousing round of single player Russian Roulette.”

So, for those of you who cannot take having someone yell at you on occasion I say, “Thank you.”  Thank you for your lack of Service.  Thank you for not tainting my beloved country’s military with your presence.  Thank you for let the real men and women earn the titles of Soldier, Sailor, Airman, and Marine.  Thank you for knowing you are too much of a psychological cripple to handle a supposed angry man or woman yell at you to help make you a better person.